


By The End Of The Night

by geckoholic



Category: Banana Fish (Anime & Manga)
Genre: Cuddling & Snuggling, Developing Relationship, During Canon, Emotional Baggage, M/M, Mild Sexual Content, Past Sexual Abuse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-02
Updated: 2019-01-02
Packaged: 2019-09-20 11:34:19
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,594
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17021910
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/geckoholic/pseuds/geckoholic
Summary: Three nights along the way.





	By The End Of The Night

**Author's Note:**

  * For [wickedcherub](https://archiveofourown.org/users/wickedcherub/gifts).



> So I've been trying to incorporate your requests for lighter moments between them and acknowledging Ash's sexual past, and I hope the result isn't too angsty for you. I couldn't help it. /o\ I might have a second fic up for you soon that’s actually happier, but I couldn’t quite make it come together before reveals.
> 
> Partially beta-read by myst, but I fiddled with it a lot afterwards, oops. Thank you!! ♥ All remaining mistakes are mine.
> 
> Title is from "End Of The Night" by Ludacris.

  **1 – Cape Cod, USA**

The wind out here, by the shore, smells of salt water and algae. It carries a chill over from the ocean, making Eiji hug himself to keep warm even though it's still summer. The sun is just setting, and on the horizon a still blue sea meets a darkening orange sky. Cape Cod could be a beautiful place. In some ways, it reminds Eiji of home, reawakens his homesickness after it fell by the wayside during the danger and excitement of the last few days. Behind that, however, Eiji can't stop wondering how being back here, being home, makes Ash feel. It's obvious that Ash can't see the beauty here, doesn't connect much by the way of happy memories to the place he grew up. A child left alone, left abandoned, blamed for the wrong done to him by the adults that were supposed to protect him. _You can have your fun with my son, for the right price._ Eiji shudders.

“Stop worrying,” Ash says, his voice close, and Eiji startles. He didn't hear him approach; sneaking up, soft-footed, like a cat. “It's all in the past. I won't lose any sleep about it, and neither should you.”

Eiji forces himself to stretch out his arms, even though the breeze threatens to make him tremble. He yawns, moves his neck, his shoulders, to get the cricks out. They did spend an awfully long time in the car. “How'd you know what I was thinking about?”

“You get this _look_ , whenever you wreck your brain on my behalf” Ash explains, and then illustrates with a sad grimace Eiji can't quit imagine himself making. He giggles, though, and Ash grins back. “Come on. Let's get back inside. I had far too much of that shitty diner food. I'm tired.”

That's a flat out lie and they both know it, Ash hardly touched the food Jennifer brought over, but Eiji sees no merit in correcting him. He follows Ash back to the house, where the others are already busy preparing their sleeping arrangements. Shorter pretends to hog the entire space he's supposed to share with Ash and Eiji, and Ash plays along, play-fights with him for awhile before he feigns surrender, complete with waving an imaginary white flag. The romp brought color to Ash's cheek, and put a small, honest little smile onto his face. It looks so effortless, sometimes, how Shorter manages to cheer him up, and suddenly Eiji's envious. Not like a possessive lover – he wouldn't have the right to that anyway – but because of how much time they already spent together, how well they know each other. Eiji's days in America are numbered. He won't have the chance to get to know Ash like that.

“I sleep in the middle,” Ash announces, sounding triumphant, like he won a prize. “You two can try and avoid rolling onto the floor during the night.”

Shorter groans and rolls his eyes, shoving him off. “You keep forgetting that you're not the boss of _me_ ,” he says, but he dutifully rolls to the left and sets upon rearranging his pillow.

Ash, for his part, plops down onto his back and crosses his arms behind his head. He searches for Eiji's gaze, and, when Eiji meets it, nods to the space to his right. “Get comfy.”

“Okay,” Eiji agrees, and sits down slowly.

He feels a bit awkward, and its stupid; Ash and him didn't have a lot of boundaries from the start, and it's not the intimacy that scares him. Except for how it does, sort of; Eiji knows that the feelings that are growing inside him are something else than friendship. His heart beats faster at the idea of being this close, perhaps even ending up in Ash's arms, and he keeps himself very still as he lies down, taking great care to not infringe on Ash's space. How can he expect that Ash, with all that happened to him and all that's going on right now, will spare a single thought on –

“You're doing it again,” Ash says, quietly, yet again surprising Eiji and dragging him from his thoughts. “Come here.”

Still hesitant, Eiji inches towards him. Ash gathers him in, spooning so that his forehead rests against the back of Eiji's neck, tangling their legs together. Eiji lets out a long breath and does as he was told; he gets comfortable. Tries to let go. Tries to stop ruminating, worrying, over-thinking. Decides it doesn't matter how much time they'll have together – the point is what they'll _do_ with it.

 

 

 

  **2 – L.A., USA**

Eiji can’t sleep. Not too much of a surprise, he guesses, given his earlier conversation on the porch with Ash, about going home to Japan. One is supposed to mourn a breakup, right? Then again, maybe _breakup_ isn’t the right word. Ash is still lying right here next to him, close enough that all Eiji needed to do was extend his hand and he could touch him or search for his hand to hold. He’s relatively sure Ash would still allow it, too. Besides, the only reason Ash wants to send him away is too protect him, a gesture of concern rather than a rejection. So, no. Not a breakup as such. But nevertheless, it stings, and the thought of leaving all this behind and never seeing Ash again remains incomprehensible. Such a short time they’ve known each other, and yet the idea of being apart hurts worse than any physical pain Eiji has ever experienced. He hasn’t felt this heartbroken since… well, since he realized that he couldn’t jump anymore.

He turns onto his back and presses his knuckles against his closed eyelids, swallowing hard, and wills himself not to cry. It’s such a stupid, childish thing to cry about. Ash hasn’t cried about their impending separation, he’s sure. Ash wouldn’t.

Ash does, however, shift against him, and Eiji hears him mumble his name. “Eiji? Everything okay?”

His voice is rough with sleep and laced with worry. He stretches, yawns, and then he’s right there, his fingers brushing Eiji’s cheek. Investigating for tears, perhaps. Eiji turns his head away, escaping his touch. He feels his face heat with a blush. He hopes it doesn’t show in the half-dark.

“I’m fine,” he says. _Stupid. Childish. A burden._ He takes a shaky breath, grimaces as it occurs to him how that’s not exactly suggesting him as the poster child of graceful composure either.

“It’s alright.” Ash is still caressing his face, fingertips dancing along his jaw, his chin, only just skirting the outline of Eiji’s lips. “I’ll miss you, too.”

With gentle, barely-there pressure, he directs Eiji’s head back around to face him, tipping Eiji’s chin downwards. Eiji doesn’t dare move, or even breathe; he stays perfectly still and closes his eyes as Ash’s mouth meets his own. The sensation is vaguely familiar, but it’s more intimate now than it was during the prison visit. No audience, no lewd gestures to play it up, just them, alone, in a bed. Breaking the kiss, Ash tugs at Eiji’s shirt sleeve, and it takes Eiji a moment to understand. Once he does, he follows Ash’s directions like there’s no other chance, utterly incapable to resist. It doesn’t sink in that Ash is flipping them, settling Eiji between his spread legs, until Ash takes to sliding his hands up and down either side of Eiji's now bare torso. The touch is soft, gentle, an offering that Eiji doesn't yet know how to refuse. He smiles down at Ash, nodding at Ash's quirked eyebrow, and yields when Ash's hold on him turns firmer, pulling him down to meet him for another kiss. Ash's mouth doesn't find his right away, however; first, he takes the time to pepper a line of tiny pecks up Eiji's neck, the sensation so new and intimate and surprising that Eiji can't suppress a moan. He feels pleasure pool low in his belly, parts of him taking an interest that he never shared with anyone else before.

Ash must have noticed that too, because Eiji feels Ash’s crotch starting to move against his thigh in a slow, practiced, almost automatic rhythm, and all the blood in his veins turns to ice water on the spot.

He shakes his head, ending the kiss. “No,” he says, throat going tight as the thought of all the other times Ash might have employed that move barrels into his mind. Using it as leverage. Obeying a command. Forced to learn it at an age where Eiji hardly knew what sex even _was_. “You… I don’t want…”

Ash sighs, but the movement stops. “Don’t you think we should do it at least once before you leave?” he asks. “I owe you that much. And if I can’t be anything else, then I want to be your first. I want you to remember me.”

The laugh bubbles out of Eiji’s throat involuntarily. He bites his lip, sensing that otherwise it might get louder and louder, might become hysterical. “We don’t have to do… this. Do you really think there’s any chance I’d ever forget about you?”

Ash averts his eyes, and although the finer lines of his face are barely visible in the dim light, his expression conveys all Eiji needs to know. He does think that. He’s actually convinced that all this is a fleeting adventure, a thought already halfway forgotten by the time Eiji steps out of the plane back in Japan. Someone else to walk out of Ash’s life without so much as a glance over their shoulder, never again spending a single thought on what might happen to him, relegating him to a distant memory the moment he’s out of their sight.

Eiji leans down, nudging Ash’s jaw with his nose, hoping it comes across as the silent request for another kiss that he means it to be. Ash lifts his head to meet him, and Eiji tries to pour his heart and soul into the kiss that follows, convey what he isn’t sure he could ever fit into words. Once it’s over he carefully rolls off Ash, fitting himself against his side.

“You said it yourself,” he points out once they’re both comfortable, his forehead loosely resting against Ash’s shoulder. “I care about you now, and I will always care about you, and there’s nothing I expect in return. I just do, and that’s never going to go away.”

In reply, Ash just huffs. He murmurs something intelligible, probably another comment about Eiji’s soft nature and lack of maturity. But he raises his arm and pulls Eiji closer, too, and that’s the reaction Eiji chooses to cherish.

 

 

 

**3 – New York, USA**

It didn't take Eiji long to notice that Ash is a light sleeper. He tosses and turns, he starts awake out of a nightmare every so often, gasping, disoriented. Sometimes he falls back asleep after. Just as often, Eiji can hear him climb out of bed and tiptoe into the living room.

Tonight, Eiji follows him, quietly, careful not to wake anyone else either.

Ash is sitting on the couch with his feet on the coffee table, wearing only boxers and a hoodie, his hair standing up every which way, and Eiji's heart grows a size or three. It's adorable. Human. Normal. All those people who call Ash a devil don't know him. They don't care to; but Eiji's paying attention.

“Bad night?” he asks, and bites his lip when Ash flinches. _Shit._ He shouldn't have tried to be quiet. He didn't get out of bed because his dreams were filled with sunshine and roses.

Ash rubs his nose with his sleeve and sniffles. He didn't cry, almost never does, but he's still visibly shaken. “I woke you,” he says, and Eiji notes how that's neither conformation nor denial. “Sorry.”

“Don't worry about it.” Eiji shrugs his shoulders. “It's not like I have to be anywhere in the morning.”

That produces a slight, lopsided smile. “You damn well better won't go anywhere.”

Part of Eiji still chafes against being tucked away safely, hidden from the world so as not to give it a chance to break him. The rest of him understands that Ash needs this, needs to protect him, and that their situation is risky and precarious. Their opponent has already proven himself to be as ruthless as he is powerful. Eiji didn't doubt that when Golzine was still a monster from someone else's story, but after their recent stint in the villa he _knows_. He caught a glimpse of what Golzine's capable of, saw it with is own two eyes.

He walks around the couch and sits down, shoving Ash's feet off the coffee table. “Don't do that. It's bad manners.”

Ash briefly loses his balance. He sinks further into the cushions, then looks at Eiji with wide eyes. A grin builds on his face, gradually lighting up his expression, and that's why Eiji doesn't expect the counterattack.

From one second to the next, Ash is on him, half-straddling him, hands wandering underneath Eiji's t-shirt. Eiji holds still, tethered by the Ash's fingertips on his skin. He closes his eyes and –

– squeaks in protest when Ash starts tickling him, right where he's most sensitive. Eiji swats at his arms and demands he stop, but Ash shakes his head, smirking.

“You want me to stop? Repeat after me,” Ash says, and Eiji's brain is working overtime to work out whatever he might want to hear; judging from the smirk, it's something he'd usually cringe at uttering out loud, but he doesn't care too much right now. He's too lost in Ash's sudden giddiness, wants to enjoy it, wants this moment to last forever. “ _Hot dogs are the best._ ”

Eiji gives him an exaggerated frown, feigning complete dismay. “I would _never_.”

Ash's fingers don't stop their teasing for even a second. “You sure? You're starting to sound out of breath. Might wanna surrender before you pass out or something.”

Futilely, Eiji tries to kick at him, buck him off, but Ash sits way too securely on his legs to be impressed by that at all. He's too proud to give in, though, and so he decides it's time he pay Ash back in kind. Not by tickling; Ash's arms are in the way, and also, Eiji doesn't stand a chance when Ash expects that kind of retaliation. No, instead he pushes himself further up and leans in, capturing Ash's mouth for a kiss.

A few seconds pass in which Ash doesn't move at all, neither tickling nor reciprocating, and Eiji begins to worry he did the wrong thing, surprised him in a bad way, took a wrong step in the minefield that is Ash and physical contact. He's about to draw back and ask when Ash wraps his arms around Eiji's neck and starts kissing him back.

After they've parted, Eiji isn't the only one breathing hard. Ash rests his head on Eiji's shoulder, and Eiji places his hands loosely on Ash's hips. “Are you okay? Was that alright?”

“Yeah,” he mumbles, low and hesitant, sounding surprised. He noses at Eiji's neck, and Eiji can feel a smile forming against his skin. “That was good. Thank you.”

His hands are now drawing light caresses onto Eiji's stomach, and it's wonderful beyond words. Ash's warm weight is covering him, and the knowledge that the man Eiji loves is safe in his arms, trusting him, not only allowing this kind of intimacy but seemingly enjoying it, too, makes Eiji's heart soar.

**Author's Note:**

> Find me on [tumblr](http://lostemotion.tumblr.com) or [twitter](https://twitter.com/spacenerdz).


End file.
